


don't wait up for me

by sessho



Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, M/M, POV Second Person, lapslock, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:27:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29060514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sessho/pseuds/sessho
Summary: you don’t worry when he’s not back by the morning
Relationships: Jung Yunho & Shim Changmin, Jung Yunho/Shim Changmin
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	don't wait up for me

**Author's Note:**

> An old work of mine that I found myself rereading after many, many years and found intriguing enough to repost here.  
> Originally posted on livejournal on Nov. 27th, 2011.  
> Enjoy?

i’ll be late, he says. you don’t even answer because why would you? it’s to be expected. work, work, schedules and dedication and passion and obligation and it’s his life, it’s your life.

you don’t worry when he’s not back by the morning. he must’ve slept in the studio, in the car, he might have just skipped sleep. it’s sad to think about it but not really, sometimes it’s just reality. it’s your reality, it’s your life.

you don’t worry.

it’s your free day (it happens, too, but not too often) and you spend it on your own terms. you study for a bit, go to university, meet with friends in the evening. you don’t text him that you’d be late because why would you. you’re both adults and it’s normal. he knows you and he knows you’re like this sometimes. maybe he even expects you to spend the night with your friends, maybe he’d even scold you were you to return too early.  
what, you haven’t seen them for so long and you’re back already?

so you don’t think of it, and you don’t think of him. he’s probably in bed at home already, trying to catch up what sleep he only can. (not much, not now, not ever, not with your schedule, with your life. you love it, at the end of the day. you hate it but it’s yours.)

you go back in the middle of the night and you don’t check his room. you take a quick shower and you spare a thought to the untouched surface of the mirror, but maybe he just went to sleep immediately. you don’t condone it but it happens, too. (you hate it when it happens to you but it does and you’ve learned to take some things in stride after all these years. you finally have.)

you don’t have any problems with falling asleep, after a rowdy night it comes even easier than it normally does. no stress, you’ve left it all behind in the fourth bar, maybe even in the third one. you don’t remember anymore but it doesn’t matter, it means you managed to let go a bit and that’s something to be happy about, to be grateful for, even.

when you wake up, it’s to the sound of the alarm of your phone. ringing dully with a default melody because you love music a bit too much to let it become hateful to your ears and mind and you’ve learned that the hard way, a beloved song lost for you forever.

you get up and go through the usual routine – bathroom, shower, teeth, clothes.

a familiar tune reaches you from the bedroom, you rush to pick up the phone – you’re still before breakfast and it makes your reply a bit edgy even when you know it’s your manager calling and it’s his work. Still, you wish he called _him_ – everyone knows you’re not at your best in the mornings, not without your breakfast, not without your coffee.

‘your schedule’s starting in an hour—’ his voice is still a bit rough from sleep and you _know_ that already, ‘—and I can’t reach yunho’s phone. is he up already?’ he continues and, ‘he’s not, actually,’ is your answer and now that you said that aloud you can’t help but wonder why it’s so.

maybe he came down with something again, you sigh at the thought. ‘i’ll go check at him and call you back soon, hyung,’ you offer him the obvious solution and get his grateful ‘will be waiting, then,’ back.

you make your way through the wide spaces of your apartment, you don’t bother with knocking on his door.

he’s not in his bed. you get a bit angry at that because surely, he could’ve contacted you to say he was going to spend the night somewhere else and meet you at work.

that’s when you remember why you’re in this room in the first place. but while it’s not like yunho to ignore anyone’s call (especially when it’s work-related) it _is_ very like him to misplace his mobile somewhere.

that’s still not the moment when you start worrying. the whole situation seems a bit not right and yunho’s more reliable than that normally but unusual is just that – unusual.

there are many things that could’ve happened. friend’s sudden call, an emergency of some kind, a practice run out too long.  


still, you feel slight irritation starting to build up in your veins – the least he could’ve done was leave some note, text you, do something, anything. he should’ve known better than this. he does know better, your treacherous mind supplies then but you shush it because why be logical, why be sensible when you can get annoyed instead.

you try calling him but he doesn’t pick up. if he did, there’d be no problem in the first place (and somewhere between one minute and another it’s started becoming a problem).

you call the manager back, explain the circumstances (only there’s nothing to explain) and suddenly, it’s too late to be eating anything (and now you’re more than a bit mad), you have to go out, the car’s already there to come to pick up. to pick up you _both_.

you get to work, apologise on his behalf (on your behalf), get done what you only can by yourself.

he still can’t be reached. his friends can but no one knows anything. you call jihye by yourself and when it’s concluded that he didn’t get in touch with anyone on their side either, it’s her anxiety bleeding thickly through the line that finally gets to you.

it’s confirmed by the management (and later by police) that jung yunho made it to the studio two nights before, practiced for several hours and left, having said his good-byes and see you laters.

after that the rest of the day (and then the week and the month) is a blur.

the management tries to keep everything under the tabs and their cooperation with the local police as inconspicuous as it’s only possible but soon, the media catch the whiff of a scandal and soon the internet and the press are buzzing with ‘dong bang shin ki’s u-know yunho gone with no trace’.

your apartment gets swarmed by all kinds of reporters, by fans, by people that care and by people that just want something interesting to gape at; your professional life paralyzed; but it’s not what matters, none of it is.

it’s the ‘i’ll be late,’ of his, these short three words. there’s no reason to blame yourself, everyone says this and you know it best, you know it without them telling you it (trying to tell, you won’t let them). you can’t be blamed, you don’t know anyone that could be and that’s even worse. if it’s not you, if it’s not someone, _anyone_ , then it’s just a coincidence. then it’s just fate or something as stupid (as impossible to fight as) that.  


you don’t lose hope, no, there’s no hope to lose, everything’s fine, you know it. you _would_ know it. if something happened to him. but nothing did. because why him? surely, there’s a limit of personal calamities that one human can become a victim of.

and yet he can’t be found, and a month passes and then several more and the case’s still on, oh, it is (u-know yunho of dong bang shin ki), but you read it in the assigned investigators’ eyes, you can see it in the way the enquiry hasn’t made any progress for some time already.

you can see it in the way ‘always keep the faith’ has somehow the meaning of yunho sound and safe (somewhere, anywhere) woven in it.

the jungs are strong. nothing less from them, not breaking down further than it’s allowed, their conviction no less stronger than it should be in such a case.

you don’t break down either. it chips at you, instead. tiny pieces, unnoticeable pieces until there’s a hole left and that’s when you’re forced to notice and say that maybe, just maybe—

but you won’t.

even when the investigation gets subtly but inexorably pushed down to subordinates of subordinates, when the case starts taking its place on documents only, when it stops being written about in the press, being talked about by people that have never cared in the first place.

you’ve never been good with changes.


End file.
